Arrests of sex offenders for Internet child pornography at public libraries highlight the need for continued vigilance against this disturbing variation of child abuse. While the Internet is an excellent source of worthwhile educational information, it is also the preferred venue of many sociopaths, thieves, fraudsters, bullies and sex offenders. Sometimes when I speak with community groups and describe the troubling crimes being facilitated via the Internet someone asks, "Why don't they just shut the whole thing down!", as if there is a switch somewhere that will just cut the power to the entire Internet.

Although the Internet, for better and for worse is with us to stay, I doubt that the framers of the constitution could have envisioned, or would have defended child pornography being viewed, trafficked and sold via the Internet through computers at our tax-supported public libraries.

In Minneapolis, the problem with people viewing all forms of pornography on library computers got so bad that in 2000, librarians there filed a hostile work environment lawsuit against the city and won a large settlement. (see http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNLJ.jsp?id=1063212018621)

Some free speech advocates have tried to inhibit the use of Internet filters on public library computers. The argument about whether or not an individual has the right to view adult pornography on a public library computer has been decided by the Supreme Court. In 2003 the Court ruled against the American Library Association and pornography producers by authorizing filtering of pornography from public library computers. Justice Stevens said, "The interest in protecting young library users from material inappropriate for minors is legitimate, and even compelling, as all Members of the Court appear to agree." In his concurring opinion, the late Justice Rehnquist cited an expert who said, "The librarian's responsibility...is to separate out the gold from the garbage, not to preserve everything." (see http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/02-361.ZC.html)

The law classifies child pornography differently from pornography depicting adults. Child pornography is unlawful everywhere but its potential for harm is sometimes underestimated. Apologists for the possessors, viewers and traffickers of child pornography argue that the images are "only pictures" and that looking at images is acceptable and preferable to actually molesting a child. This rationalization was best refuted by Canadian Michael Brier, a viewer of Internet child pornography who murdered 10 year old Holly Jones in Toronto. He confessed that viewing the images made him "long for it" (the sex act) "in his heart". (see http://www.independent-bangladesh.com/news/dec/31/31122004wo.htm)

In one Arizona appellate case (State of AZ v. Morton Robert Berger, 2004) the defendant argued that because his possession of child pornography was passive and because he did not use violence, his long prison sentence was unfair. Judges Ehrlich and Hall of the Arizona Court of Appeals disagreed. They said that such logic is abstruse and cited other courts that have decided that child pornography is a form of child abuse. According to the courts, possessors of child pornography support the child pornography industry and thus support the subordination of children. The court in Berger also said that consumers of child pornography provide an economic motive for its creation and continuation; absent such encouragement and enablement, these children would not have been abused as they were. (see Haslett, 205, Ariz. at 527 P11, 73 P.3d at 1262)

Other apologists for possessors of child pornography argue that there is no proven link between those who view child pornography and those who commit "hands-on" contact offenses. This argument was refuted when a study of prisoners in Federal custody for possession of child pornography found that a significant number had committed previously unreported acts of contact sex offenses against minors. (see http://www.kardasz.org/HernandezPrisonStudy.pdf)

Meanwhile, the troubles involving offenders viewing child pornography in libraries continue. In 2004, a Pennsylvania man raped and choked an eight year old girl in a public library restroom after viewing pornography on the computers there. (see http://citypaper.net/articles/2004-04-08/cb.shtml) Other similar incidents throughout the United States have caused some library administrators to take notice.

While some libraries have taken affirmative steps towards protecting patrons from both adult pornography and child pornography, more work is needed. Investigators need additional tools to assist them in stopping child pornography in public libraries. I recommend the following additional steps to further improve library safety and assist law enforcement officers investigating child pornography incidents:

Those who use public library computers should be required to provide and enter identification information, if only a library card number, before being permitted to use the computers. The library card number should be preserved on the library computer servers for 90 days so that in the event of a crime investigators could obtain a subpoena and retrieve the information.

Libraries should adjust their computer server logs to capture information about all Internet (URL) locations visited by each computer, and retain the information for at least 90 days. The captured information would not be revealed to anyone without the appropriate court order.

Libraries should retain information about the library materials checked out and later returned by patrons for a period of 90 days after the items are returned. This information also would not be available without the appropriate court order.

Surveillance video collected in public areas of libraries is public information. Persons whose images are recorded there are not in a place where they have a reasonable expectation of privacy. Copies of such videos should be provided to law enforcement officers upon request and without requiring a court order.

Libraries must acknowledge that they are Internet service providers as defined in Federal law and subject to the provisions of law that requires them to report child pornography when it is discovered on computers. (see http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode18/usc_sec_18_00002510----000-.html)

Computer software that filters pornography must be actively and carefully monitored in order to keep computers safe.

Implementing these recommendations will help make libraries safer for citizens and give law enforcement additional avenues for finding offenders when incidents occur.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Children, libraries and pornography; which one of those words does not belong with the other two?

Witnessing an alarming increase in child victims of preferential sex offenders, Congress passed the Protect Act. The law strengthens some of the laws against preferential offenders and provides mandatory sentencing for offenders.

When he signed the legislation into law on April 30, 2003, President Bush said,

This law, the Protect Act of 2003, will greatly assist law enforcement in tracking criminals who would harm our children, and will greatly help in rescuing the youngest victims of crime. With my signature, this new law will formally establish the federal government's role in the Amber Alert system and will make punishment for federal crimes against children more severe.This law carries forward a fundamental responsibility of public officials at every level of government to do everything we can to protect the most vulnerable citizens from dangerous offenders who prey on them.

The Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA), sponsored by Senators McCain and Hollings attempted to provide another important tool for protecting children, specifically in our nations libraries. The law requires the installation and use by schools and libraries of technology for filtering or blocking harmful material on computers with Internet access to be eligible to receive or retain universal service assistance.

Misguided free speech advocates, most prominently the American Library Association, which was joined by promoters and supporters of pornography, fought CIPA to the Supreme Court and lost. In June 2003, the Court decided UNITED STATES ET AL. V. AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION, INC., ET AL.

Despite the positive inroads of legislators and courts, disturbing incidents continue: In February 2004, an eight year old girl was brutally attacked and raped in a Philadelphia library. The offender was a recidivist sex offender who utilized library computers to view pornography. It is time for libraries to take affirmative aggressive steps towards protecting children from preferential sex offenders.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ARE LIBRARIES FACILITATING FELONY CRIMES?

Arizona Revised Statutes, (ARS 13-1004) defines facilitation as follows: A person commits facilitation if, acting with knowledge that another person is committing or intends to commit an offense, the person knowingly provides the other person with means or opportunity for the commission of the offense. Knowing that pedophiles and preferential sex offenders frequent the library for the purpose of viewing child pornography there,some libraries continue to provide unrestricted Internet access. Is it facilitation? While most legal scholars would scoff at this loose association, as taxpayers and legislators supporting library activities we are tacit accomplices to the crime.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ARREST AT LIBRARY IN MONTVALE VIRGINIAJuly 9, 2010

Investigators with the Bedford County Sheriff’s Office, ICAC Task Force, arrested Roosevelt Occenac, 8 Bradley Lane, Roanoke, VA, a 45 year old male, from Haiti, for violation of 18.2-26/18.2-374.1:1 Code of Virginia, Attempting to Possess Child Pornography, at the Montvale Public Library.

At 1107 AM authorities at the library notified the sheriff’s office of the suspicious activities of an individual using one of the library computers. Mr. Occenac was arrested at the library, without incident, after ICAC investigators and Bedford County Deputies arrived at the library and placed the individual under surveillance. Mr. Occenac was transported to the magistrate’s office in Bedford and then remanded to the Blue Ridge Regional Jail facility in Bedford where he is being held without bond. ICAC investigators also obtained a search warrant for Mr. Occenac’s vehicle and a USB device that was in his possession at the time of his arrest. He was observed by two girls, age 10 and 12, on Tuesday and they reported it to their mother who reported it to the staff of the library. The staff was not able to locate him on Tuesday, but saw him re-enter the library on Thursday and kept him under surveillance until our investigators arrived at the library. The suspect was there both times during a “children’s time” event.

This incident draws attention of the need to provide libraries with quick and easy training in this arena so that they can, when these events occur, preserve evidence and protect the innocent bystander until law enforcement arrives.

Holly Johnson, The Arizona Republic, Aug. 13, 2004A sexual predator is back behind bars today, after parole officers found diaries and photographs detailing sexual exploits in his motel room, authorities said. Charlton Glenn Ward, 33, of Phoenix was booked into Jail on six counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, a felony. Ward's parole officers went to his motel room in central Phoenix on July 23 to check on him. What they found was chilling.

A detective found a book detailing sexual acts. The book contained names of at least 40 girls. Officers uncovered pictures of what appeared to be Ward having sex with girls as young as 1 year old and as old as 13. They also found children's underwear, and child pornography that Ward said he downloaded at Phoenix Public Library. Ward was released from prison last year after serving time for molesting a 3-year-old girl in 1996, according to Arizona Departmentof Corrections records.

retrieved August 13, 2004 from http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/0813childsex13.html#------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PHOENIX, ARIZONA PUBLIC LIBRARY - INTERNET PREFERENTIAL SEX OFFENDER

On February 20, 2004, 24 year old Gary Lee Davis plead guilty in Maricopa County Superior Court to one count of sexual exploitation of a minor for possessing child pornography. The case began on March 24 2003, when a horrified patron of the Cholla branch of the Phoenix Public library at 10050 Metro Parkway East noticed that Davis was viewing child pornography on a public-access computer there. The Phoenix Public Library Internet-use rules tacitly permits felony child pornography violations through a policy offeigned helplessness.

The alert patron notified the lethargic library staff and repeatedly demanded that police be notified. As Davis fled in a vehicle, responding Phoenix Police officers stopped and arrested him nearby. Davis was found in possession of dozens of disturbing images of children being sexually exploited. Investigators were unable to substantiate added allegations that Davis had committed child molestation. He was permitted to plead guilty before Judge Granville to possession of one unlawful image and received theArizona minimum mandatory sentence for the offense, ten years prison. Davis also received lifetime probation and will be required to register as a sex offender upon his release.

MINNEAPOLIS - The city's public library will consider using Internet filters to restrict patrons' access to online porn, and will pay $435,000 to a dozen librarians who said easy access to the images resulted in a hostile work environment, the librarians' lawyer said Friday. Library officials released a statement confirming the settlement, but did not mention the amount. Among other measures, the officials said they would consider Internet filters and an increase in the penalties for those who violate the library'sInternet policy. The library did not admit any wrongdoing. The issue arose in 1997, when librarians complained that staffers were being regularly exposed to pornographic images. Concern grew as patrons, including children, also were exposed to the graphic material. The librarians complained to state and federal agencies, and in 2001 the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission found probable cause that federal law had been violated because of a sexually hostile work environment. The case was referred to the Justice Department, which decided not to sue the library. The librarians filed a federal lawsuit in March.The Associated Press. AP US & World, August 15, 2003--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CYBERLAW JOURNAL: CONTROVERSIAL RULING ON LIBRARY FILTERS

New York Times on line. June 1, 2001 By Carl S. KaplanIn early 1997, the Minneapolis Public Library began giving its patrons unfettered and unlimited access to the Internet. The library’s First Amendment-inspired policy was intended to provide a needed service to the community. But Wendy Adamson, a reference desk librarian at the library's central branch, said it effectively made her working life a nightmare, and federal officials appear poised to agree with her.

Acting on complaints from Adamson and other librarians at the city’s central branch library, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s Minneapolis office ruled last week that the library, by exposing its staff to sexually explicit images on unrestricted computer terminals, may have allowed for a hostile work environment. The blockbuster finding, issued on May 23 following an investigation by the agency, came in response to complaints filed a year ago by Adamson and 11 of her colleagues.

Free speech advocates quickly expressed concern that the E.E.O.C.'s decision is a dangerous precedent that could pressure libraries to aggressively monitor patrons' viewing habits or install filtering software as a means to ward off potential discrimination suits. But Adamson and Bob Halagan, the lawyer for the librarians, hailed the commission's finding as a victory for common sense.

Adamson said the complaints were filed only after she and other librarians repeatedly notified library officials about their concerns and detailed what they said were the new policy’s negative impact on staff and patrons.

"Our downtown library became a club for a large number of men who were viewing pornography all day," Adamson, who has been a librarian for over 30 years, said in an interview. "I'd see these men at the door at 9 a.m. and some of them would still be there at 9 at night."

Adamson said that while she was sitting at her workplace and doing her job, she would look up and see "horrible" stuff on the screens of nearby terminals. "I'm talking about torture and sex with animals," she said. It was "really demoralizing and depressing."

Computer printouts of sexually explicit pictures littered the library, Adamson said. She said she saw some men at computer terminals engage in what appeared to her to be masturbation and that computer users would verbally abuse her when she tried to enforce timelimits.

The worst part of her day, she said, was watching, helplessly, as members of the public -- including children -- encountered unwanted sexual images on terminals. Often, she said, a patron who wanted to do conventional research would approach a terminal and find that it was locked onto a sexually explicit site -- owing to a "quicksand" feature some porn sites use that prevents users from leaving the site. She said she repeatedly had to calm the patrons and reset the terminal's browser.

"We were told [by administrators] to avert our eyes. But we were surrounded by it," she said, adding that library officials did not respond to staff complaints about the policy.

The director of the Minneapolis Public Library, Mary L. Lawson, did not return telephone calls. The library's spokesperson released a statement, attributed to Lawson, stating that the library would not comment on the E.E.O.C.'s finding until it had the opportunity to consult with its lawyer and trustees.

The statement noted, however, that last spring the library adopted revised guidelines for Internet use. Among other things, the new guidelines include time limits, sign-up procedures requiring identification, posted notices prohibiting illegal Internet activity and enforcement procedures.

The E.E.O.C.'s ruling, called a "determination," is a preliminary conclusion by the agency that there is reason to believe discrimination occurred. The commission will next attempt to resolve the matter through mediation. Adamson said the E.E.O.C. had privately suggested to the library that it pay each of the 12 employees $75,000 in damages.

If the agency’s mediation efforts fail -- if the library declines to enter settlement discussions or if the E.E.O.C. is unable to secure an acceptable settlement -- the matter may be sent to the Department of Justice for possible prosecution. In addition, the librarians may elect to directly sue the library in court.

David Rucker, an enforcement supervisor for the E.E.O.C.'s Minneapolis office, declined to confirm or deny the E.E.O.C.'s investigation of the library, citing his office's policy of confidentiality.

Jan LaRue, senior director of legal studies for the conservative Family Research Council, which has consistently lobbied for governmental regulation of Internet decency, said that the E.E.O.C.'s finding will make libraries across the country "sit up and take notice."

"When libraries face up to the fact that they face a loss of revenues" from potential discrimination suits, they will begin to restrict patrons' access to sexually explicit material on the Internet, she said. LaRue said that she believed nothing less than filtering software will solve the problem of a library's hostile work environment.

"The Minneapolis Public Library's current policy is to tell people, 'Don't touch the paint,'" LaRue said. "But people still touch the paint. It's much more effective to keep [sexually explicit images] from coming up on the screen as much as possible."

Eugene Volokh, a law professor at U.C.L.A. who has written extensively about the Internet, free speech and workplace harassment law, agreed that the E.E.O.C.'s finding would put pressure on library trustees to adopt filtering. He added, however, that he disagreed with the government's policy of forcing libraries, under the threat of discrimination law penalties, to restrict the freedom of library users to view legally protected but offensive material.

Of course, a library that uses filtering software on all its terminals risks inviting -- and losing -- a First Amendment lawsuit, Volokh said, alluding to a 1998 federal district court decision declaring that the filtering policy of a public library in Loudoun County, Va., was unconstitutional.

But losing a First Amendment lawsuit will subject a library to "nominal damages," Volokh said. Losing a Title VII discrimination lawsuit can result in damages "with lots of zeros in it," he said. Faced with the choice between two equally hazardous legal alternatives, library trustees will logically opt to install filters and ward off harassment suits with potentially massive damages, he said.

Ann Beeson, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union who specializes in cyberlaw cases, said that a charge of sexual harassment is often used as a pretext to justify library filtering. The Loudoun County library's filtering scheme was cast in the form of anti- harassment policy, she said. But the judge in that case found that there was no hard evidence that any librarian was at substantial risk of harassment from viewing sexual images. Beeson said that, even today, millions of library patrons use unrestricted Internet terminals without harming librarians. In any case, she said, there are better ways to avoid a hostile environment for librarians than the use of filtering. Acceptable means include the use of blinders or "privacy screens" on terminals.

A new law that requires public libraries and schools that receive federal telecommunications funds to install Internet blocking software goes into effect in July, 2002. The federal law was challenged on First Amendment grounds in March by the ACLU and the AmericanLibrary Association. Still, Halagan, the librarians' lawyer in the Minneapolis matter, said that it is a mistake for people to reduce the Minneapolis controversy to a filtering vs. non-filtering debate. "As a matter of fact, my clients are split on the subject," he said.

"What this determination will do is cause other libraries to think about what obligations they have [to their employees] and to balance that with the First Amendment," he said. "The answer could be separate computers for children, filtering, limiting printer access, posting notices or working with local police. It's a complex issue." Halagan said that the Minneapolis library's revised policy, which went into effect shortly after his clients filed their complaints, has resulted in a much-improved work climate, but that more needed to be done.

For her part, Adamson said that she hopes the ruling will empower other librarians who feel harassed to speak up.

"Our experience will be felt by other people in other libraries," she predicted. She said that when speaking about this subject, she could not help recalling an incident when she was helping 12-year old girl with a term paper. She said they were standing by a bookcase, theirbacks to a computer terminal. Adamson said that, when she turned and saw that the user of the nearby computer was looking at a picture of a "naked woman tied up," she thought up a ruse to escort the girl to another part of the library so she would not see the picture. "This happened all the time. It was so stressful."

Retrieved March 10, 2003 from http://www-ec.njit.edu/~walshd/010601CYBERLAW.html